Two times the restoration of Chevys

Carroll Allen has made his mark in the collector car world by taking a couple of baseline model Chevys and turning each one into something special.

Carrol Allen's Chevies were manufactured more than three decades apart, but they share a couple of things. Each car was the low cost offering from Chevrolet in the year of their birth and each has been reborn thanks to its owner's considerable automotive skills.
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Carrol Allen says he completed a full frame-up restoration of his 1929 Chevrolet 2-door Coach after 12 years and quadruple bypass surgery. Although it's regularly driven to car shows, on classic Chevy tours and in parades, the burgundy beauty looks as fresh as the day it was finished in 1995.
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Allen's 1963 Chevy II hardtop did duty as his son's high school car, but was in rough shape, covered with hail damage, when he decided it was time to bring it back to life. Dechromed, smoothed and covered in Victory Red paint, the little Chevy was re-engined with an Astro van V-6.
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Chevrolet stepped up its power plant offerings in 1929, advertising `A Six in the price range of a Four.' The 196 cubic inch OHV 6-cylinder engine was available in the Coach model for only $595.
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The stylized cover between the front frame horns features simulated louvers and a nifty molded fitting where a hand-crank could be inserted if the electrical starter failed.
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Allen and his son Chris installed the Hampton Coach cloth upholstery kit inside the old Chevy, giving it just the right look for a fully roadworthy restoration.
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The instrument panel is a masterpiece of understated simplicity, with white-faced oval gauges and polished control knobs. The tall shifter controls a non-sychronized 3-speed manual transmission.
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The '63 Chevy II featured a clean, simple rear design, with squared off combination tail light/backup lights and a horizontal spear across the deck lid. Robbies Hobbies handled the replating of the front and rear bumpers.
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Allen revived the big wooden steering wheel with a lot of hand-rubbed tung oil. The spoke covers are reproduction pieces, but the aluminum hub and horn button are original pieces.
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One way to spot a Chevy of the late '20s and early '30s is the distinctive solid disc wheels. Some models were available with spoke wheels, but the disc wheels looked ultra-modern at the time.
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The old inline 6-cylinder engine was replaced with a 4.3 liter Astro van's V-6 mated to a 700R4 automatic overdrive. Mercury Bobcat front suspension with rack and pinion steering was added, along with tubular braces to stiffen the front of the car.
Courtesy

The bucket-style front seats fold forward to give access to the spacious rear passenger area of the 2-door sedan. Note the ample leg room.
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The dashboard design is a symmetrical layout, with the instruments perfectly centered in body-colored panel.
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The S-10 pickup rear end used under the Chevy II actually proved too narrow, so the owner had a friend custom-mill a set of wheel spacers to move the 7-inch wide Unique wheels to the proper location in the wheel wells. The rear tires are also Winston radials, but in a larger 235/60R15 size.
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Morgan-Bulleigh gets credit for the `waterfall-style' upholstery theme used to upgrade the original seats.
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Allen chose a set of Unique 5-spoke polished wheels for the Chevy II; the front wheels are equipped with 195/60R/15 Winston radials.
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Not exactly handy, the gas gauge is mounted outside, on the top of the fuel tank. The filler neck is located on the other end of the tank.
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Allen removed most of the side trim on the car, but chose to retain the small`6' fender badge because the car is still powered by a 6-cylinder engine, this one modern V-6, which replaced the old inline 6.
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The header panel above the windshield contains a crank mechanism that allows the glass to be cranked up a few inches for interior ventilation. The windshield wiper operates via a conventional vacuum pump, not the crank.
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The passenger side door is equipped with a handy map pocket. Both doors are lockable, but only the passenger door can be opened from the outside with a key.
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Built as a basic economy car, the Chevy II proved a perfect palette for an interior upgrade.
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Carrol Allen
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The interior of the Chevy II has been upgraded with two-tone leather upholstery, a late model GM tilt steering wheel and modern gauges and stereo system.
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Carroll Allen has made his mark in the collector car world by taking a couple of baseline model Chevys and turning each one into something special.

One is a beautifully restored 1929 two-door Coach sedan, the other a significantly modified 1963 Chevy II. They really couldn’t be much more different, but each has satisfied Allen’s desire to preserve a bit of Chevrolet heritage.

Allen said he got into dirt track racing, mostly as a car owner, back in the 1970s.

"I always ran Chevrolets in them,” he said. "I always wanted to restore an old car."

So naturally, when his barber told him about an old Chevrolet that belonged to a widow in Wichita, his interest was piqued.

"It was all there, but it was in pretty sad shape,” he said. “After the husband died, his son tried to fix it up … but he kind of messed it up. He camouflaged it pretty well, though.”

Much of the glass had been replaced with plexiglass and the wood body framing was badly cobbled up.

"I brought it home and got it running. I drove it a couple of times around the neighborhood," he said. But he wasted no time in tearing the car apart. That was in 1983.

"I bought it with the full intention of completely restoring it," he said. "It took me 12 years and a quadruple bypass surgery to get it done."

But in the process, he learned a lot about mechanics, carpentry and upholstery work.

Once the car was completely disassembled, he purchased a wood framing kit from Jim Rodman of Hanna, Ind.

"It was a mixture of oak, maple and ash, all hardwoods. His craftsmanship was just incredible," Allen said. "The sheet metal is all nailed to the wood about every three-eighths of an inch.”

He had repaired and smoothed all of the car’s body work prior to beginning the reassembly process.

Allen had decided one of the few changes he would make was a different paint color. His son, David, a skilled artist, did a detailed sketch of the car, which Carroll Allen took to a copy shop and made numerous copies. Using watercolors, he hand-painted copies until he hit on the deep burgundy color that would be sprayed on the finished panels by Mike Steiner of Winfield. The fenders were done in factory black, with the pinstriping of the body and trademark Chevy disc wheels handled by Nadine Ward.

The trick to combining the wood and metal was to start at the door sills, the cowl posts and the doors, Allen learned.

"When the doors don’t line up, nothing fits,” he said. “The wood fit the metal like a glove. I can snap the doors shut.”

Inside, he and his other son, Chris, installed a Hampton Coach upholstery kit, including a fresh headliner tacked to wooden bows. The front seats fold forward to provide access to the spacious rear bench seat, which affords underseat storage since the two-door sedan has no trunk.

The original gauges and knobs were refinished, as was the big wooden four-spoke steering wheel.

A crank on the header panel seems to be connected to the single windshield wiper, but is actually used to raise and lower the windshield glass, allowing for flow-through ventilation. The gas gauge is mounted outside, atop the eight-gallon gas tank, which can prove tricky on road trips.

"This was the first Chevy 6. Before, they were powered by 4-cylinders," Allen said, showing off the surprisingly modern-looking OHV engine.

An advertisement at the time boasted: "The Coach — $595 — A Six in the price range of a Four."

The restoration was finished in 1995 and Allen and his wife, Beverly, have driven it regularly on regional Chevrolet club tours, in parades and to car shows, but the burgundy sedan looks as if it just rolled out of the paint shop.

Built some 34 years after the sedan, Allen’s Chevy II was Chevrolet’s answer to people looking for a nice economy car in 1963. It had been son Chris’ high school car and he held onto it, planning to eventually fix it back up.

"It sat here on our back lot and deteriorated. It got hit by bad hail in ’92," Carrol Allen said. "People could see it from the street were always coming by asking to buy it.”

Once the ’29 was finished, he decided to take on the job himself.

"I was just going to freshen it up and make a nice driver out of it," he said. "It had an old inline 6 in it, with a 2-speed automatic. I tore it apart. Most people would have put a small block V-8 in it, but I bought an Astro van and thought I would try to fit a V-6 in it."

To make that work, he installed a Mercury Bobcat front suspension, complete with power rack and pinion steering, in the car. The shock towers had to be cut out, so he braced the front end assembly with round moly tubing. The 4.3 liter V-6 is equipped with throttle body fuel injection and a 700R4 automatic overdrive transmission.

The van’s rear end was too wide, so Allen found an S-10 Chevy pickup differential, which proved to be too narrow when it came time to mount the 15-inch Unique mag wheels. So he had a friend machine a set of wheel spacers out of aluminum to center the rear tires in the wheel wells.

Allen dispensed with a lot of the chrome trim on the car, but retained the stock Chevy "6" fender badges since the car was still powered by a 6-cylinder. David Holt painted the Chevy II a bright Victory Red and Morgan-Bulleigh created a custom two-tone gray leather interior for the car.

Two different approaches to two classic Chevies — and both worked out just the way the owner wanted.